Resolution, but not resolved

An inconsiderate father’s relationship with the mother of his girlfriend may have been the spark that set a 17-year-old car thief off on a  stolen-car rampage through rural Manitoba last summer.

The young man, his girlfriend and two other teen girls made headlines this summer after embarking on a near deadly dangerous-driving and robbery rampage through the Beausejour and Selkirk areas.

Now, the boy has been sentenced to two years after pleading guilty to a host of crimes stemming from what happened on July 6.

The Free Press has previously reported about how the boy stole a Dodge Durango owned by a person from Minnesota and used it to lead RCMP on three prolonged high-speed chases that reached speeds of 170 km/h along the Trans-Canada and other, smaller, highways.

He hurled beer bottles at police and goaded them as they tried in vain to bring the SUV to a halt before it killed someone over the time he was racing along the roads. All of the kids in the vehicle gave cops the finger.

Eventually, the boy rolled the vehicle to avoid a spike belt.

He had to be tackled by police as he ran from the scene of the crash.  The girls he was travelling with giggled as the officers chased after him.

They laughed at how long it took them to capture him, court heard. They also toyed with police by initially refusing to give up their names.

As he ran, he approached a van on the highway which slowed down for him. It appeared he was going to try and car-jack it, but the driver quickly clued into what was happening and sped off instead.

In the end, all three of the girls gave statements clearly implicating him as the mastermind of their so-called joyride. "I would have made it if it weren’t for the spike belt," the boy told officers at the scene.

One of those girls was singled out by Crown attorney Liz Pats as one of the most skilled car thieves in the city of Winnipeg. For the record, the boy’s no slouch at it either. He’s been on the Winnipeg police auto-theft radar as a chronic offender since 2006.

His success at defeating engine ignitions once triggered Manitoba’s RCMP to assemble a task force of sorts to try and decipher what- or who - was behind a rash of about 100 car thefts taking place in the Steinbach area of Manitoba.

That is, when he wasn’t locked up in Juvie jail, where he’s been a lot since 2004.

But new details of what led up to the rampage emerged at the boy’s sentencing Tuesday.

The boy’s lawyer, Alan Libman said that the boy’s girlfriend and her mom came out to visit him at his dad’s place in British Columbia, prompting the boy’s selfish father to initiate a relationship with the girlfriend’s mom.

 "Dad has always put himself first at the expense of (the boy)."

The dad has also been physically abusive to him in the past, once kicking the boy in the head.

Court heard how the father is a Mexican immigrant who grew up in extreme circumstances and was subjected to corporal punishment when he was a youth. His son’s always been bereft of his father’s attention.

"He’s always wanted his father’s approval, but it’s never been coming," Libman said.

His poor relationship with the man he calls "dad," coupled with his anger at the new relationship blossoming with his lover’s mother ultimately led the boy to defy a previous deferred custody order and make a break back to Manitoba.

Domestic violence-related charges also ensued, but those weren’t discussed in detail Tuesday.

And the rest, as they say, is history, or at least another page in the Manitoba Justice logbook.

Except, however, for a few sidelined things:

Such as how the victims on the road that day felt as a 2-ton hunk of steel came hurtling toward them on the open road, in some cases trying to deliberately drive them off of it at extremely high speeds.

In short, they were absolutely terrified, Pats said. 

One victim who was driving relatives to Kenora said that the youth drove straight toward them, causing him to be run off the road.
The driver said in a victim impact statement that he remembers the boy laughing as he did this and passed by.

Some others travelling back from a busy baseball tournament in Beausejour tried frantically to contact friends and family who were travelling back on one of the highways the boy was rampaging on.

Pats said it was "staggering" that tragedy was averted that day. "I doubt he’ll ever get it...the potential for someone (to be) killed that day was staggering."

As an aside, the 16-year-old store clerk in Elma who was robbed by the boy of cigarettes and cash as the girls shoplifted candy during the spree refuses to work at night anymore.

She’s even uncomfortable working alone during the day.

The boy’s sentence has been broken into chunks, in typical Canadian youth justice fashion. He’s been in custody since the day of the rampage.

So, for the next 140 days, he’ll be in secure custody. Following that, he’ll get to try brief periods in public for the next 140, and if that goes well, be granted 140 days of community supervision followed by two years of probation.

He’ll never hold a driver’s licence, and no doubt he’ll be paying Manitoba Public Insurance back for the damage he caused. Pats said it’s unlikely the boy will "get it" until his first visit to the Remand Centre.

To be fair, Libman said that there’s some proof that the boy has become a patsy for police attentions. He was even charged with a theft that took place when he was locked up in the youth centre.

He’s maliciously called a "half-breed" by some kids due to his lineage. Underneath the hard exterior is a heck of a hockey player, Libman suggested.

There’s no doubt, however, that he’s now paying a price for what happened that day. Two of the other girls received probation for their involvement.

There’s also no doubt that he’s straightforward. "It was all me," he told police after his arrest.

In one sense, he dodged a bullet. The Crown did not seek an adult sentence despite the seriousness of what he did and his nearing his 18th birthday.

"The key aspect (with him) is the protection of the public," Pats said in arguing for the maximum youth sentence allowed for the crimes to which he pleaded guilty.